join p atreon.com/KeyofStars and become a Sequence 9: Reader for dozens of advance chapters for over a dozen fics | Every 100 powerstones = 1 extra chapter
At night, Leyton had just finished dinner and was preparing to continue his research into the characteristics of the Desire Apostle.
Thump-thump! Two continuous, short knocks sounded.
The door creaked open automatically, and Klein walked in, taking off the semi-tall silk top hat he was wearing.
"I thought you'd choose to come see me tomorrow?"
As he spoke, Leyton had already brought two cups of coffee to the living room sofa.
Klein smiled politely and said,
"Before, I had a Machinery Hivemind protector by my side, so I needed to pay attention to my behavior and fit the persona of a detective."
"It's already evening. Are you still drinking coffee? Aren't you afraid you won't be able to sleep tonight?"
"For a Beyonder, getting sleep is a very simple matter. Moreover, having just obtained the characteristics of the Desire Apostle, I'm highly unlikely to be in the mood to sleep until I've made some progress in my research."
As he spoke, Leyton was already leaning back on the sofa, casually pushing the other cup of coffee towards Klein.
Klein glanced at the coffee on the tea table and, for the sake of his sleep quality tonight, shook his head slightly, refusing it.
After organizing his words a bit, he said,
"I have completed the Spirit Channeling on that Desire Apostle, Patrick Jason Beria. He is a member of a Devil family and joined a very ancient Hidden organization, where he received a mission to assassinate Duke Negan."
"The reward was a Card of Blasphemy, the Abyss Card!"
"That ancient organization is called the Twilight..."
"Cough!" Leyton coughed lightly, interrupting the other's narration, then explained to Klein, who looked puzzled:
"Don't mention that name casually outside; it will be noticed."
"..." After a brief shock, Klein's expression turned somewhat annoyed as he mused,
"If... I told Miss Justice the name of this organization, would she be in danger?"
You move so fast?
Leyton raised an eyebrow at Klein, then pondered for a moment before saying,
"As long as it's not mentioned frequently, or if the identity is special, there's no extreme danger. That person isn't some evil god... At most, it's just a glance, and perhaps at some point, Miss Justice might become part of their plan."
"This 'person'... is a high-Sequence Beyonder of the Spectator Pathway?" Klein's brows gradually furrowed; the description reminded him of the high-Sequence abilities of the Spectator Pathway.
Leyton nodded gently and said,
"It should be said, currently the strongest one in the Spectator Pathway... Frequently mentioning Him and His 'Dusk Shut-in Group' will draw attention, easily exposing some key information, and you might inadvertently become a character in their script."
"Dusk Shut-in Group... The nickname you came up with is quite unique. Can doing this prevent them from noticing?"
Klein controlled the twitching of his mouth and sighed softly.
"If you mentally link this nickname to the entity itself, it will certainly be noticed... I've given myself some psychological hints that for me, this is just a word like 'someone' or 'there,' which has no fixed referent."
"I see." Klein nodded in understanding, then said,
"My appearance as the 'Black Emperor' at the place where Jason Beria was killed by you seems to have made the people from the three Churches draw some connections... This allowed me to fully digest the Magician potion in my body."
"Congratulations." Leyton suppressed his surprised expression and offered his congratulations.
This progress is unusually fast! In less than half a year, he's about to become a Sequence 6 Faceless.
Due to the successful digestion of the potion, Klein's mood was noticeably higher:
"I'm still missing some supplementary ingredients, but they are just common ones, so I'll be able to collect them soon."
"There should also be a considerable bounty, right? The Church people arrived too quickly; you must have subtly warned them."
Recalling how the Church of the Evernight Goddess, carrying 1-42, arrived too quickly, preventing him from taking the suitcase Jason Beria had with him, Leyton shook his head helplessly.
That was all the wealth Jason Beria had accumulated in Backlund over so many years, at least fifty or sixty thousand pounds.
Klein nodded gently, saying with a pleasant voice, "Yes, I received 1000 pounds!"
Underground area of the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery.
A group of Machinery Hivemind team members were gathered around an ancient silver mirror with strange patterns, and black gems decorated as "eyes" on both sides of the mirror.
A Machinery Hivemind team member glanced at the mirror arrodes, which was quite famous in the Church, and asked curiously,
"Deacon, if one asks the mirror some unsolved problems or classic paradoxes, will it give correct answers?"
"It will directly refuse, or give you a lightning bolt, or make you suffer a curse you absolutely don't want to face."
"It is a living Sealed Artifact, and it possesses extremely high intelligence; you cannot treat it as a rigid object."
Ikanser answered with a sigh.
After answering the team member's question, he clenched his fist, and after calming his somewhat nervous feelings, he spread his five fingers and gently stroked the silver mirror's surface three times.
A subtle mist rippled across the silver mirror's surface. Ikanser took a deep breath and spoke in a low voice:
"Respected Arrodes, my question is, who or which force instructed that Desire Apostle to assassinate Duke Negan?"
The mirror arrodes was silent for a moment, showing no images. After a long while, water rippled, outlining a twilight scene.
"What does this mean?" The Machinery Hivemind team members looked at each other, unable to understand the meaning of the scene the mirror presented.
"Twilight... a symbol of life reaching its end. Could it be a sect that worships Death? Or lunatics who believe in the apocalypse?"
"I think it's the latter."
The team members discussed amongst themselves, but ultimately did not reach a definitive conclusion.
Ikanser, who had just asked the question, did not pay attention to his team members' discussion. His face was already flushed, and he even felt like his head was smoking.
Because the mirror arrodes had asked its question:
"What color underwear do you like best?"
Ikanser struggled to utter a single word:
"Red."
The room suddenly became exceptionally quiet, everyone looking nonchalantly towards the corner of the room.
Ikanser scratched his fluffy hair, suppressing the constant surge of shame within him, and asked the second question:
"Respected Arrodes, my second question is, who killed the Desire Apostle?"
The mirror arrodes's image suddenly seemed to jam. Though water rippled, no new image appeared. After a not-so-short time, a blurry dark scene finally appeared, where one could only vaguely see a person standing in the darkness.
The image quickly disappeared, giving Ikanser no time to think. Arrodes, as if in a fit of pique, consecutively displayed crimson words:
"It's my turn to ask!"
"Who is the person you fantasize about in your mind every time you use your hand?"
The room suddenly fell silent, so quiet that everyone's breathing could be heard.
"I choose punishment." Ikanser said through gritted teeth, his face alternating between white and red.
The next moment, a silver electric light flashed for an instant, as if Arrodes had been waiting for an opportunity to strike him.
Ikanser, with a charred and slightly barbecued-smelling head, sat down somewhat dizzily in the chair behind him.
A team member said with some reluctance,
"Deacon, let me take the next question."
"...Try not to enter the punishment phase." Ikanser nodded gently, his voice somewhat weak.
This self-sacrificing Machinery Hivemind member confidently imitate Ikanser's actions, gently stroking the silver mirror's surface three times.
"Respected Arrodes, my question is, who are the collaborators of that Desire Apostle?"
As water rippled on the silver mirror, it showed the back of a lady with an extremely excellent figure.
Then, it changed to an extremely blurry person, only barely identifiable as a male from their clothing.
The image quickly ended, and the silver mirror's surface swiftly outlined bloody words:
"Do you solve it with your hand every day?"
The team member who asked the question froze in place, feeling his ears rapidly growing hot.
"...Yes." He answered very softly.
At 15 Minsk Street, in the second-floor washroom, Klein looked at the mirror in front of him with a puzzled expression as lines of bright red words appeared:
"Oh! My great Master, your humble, loyal servant Arrodes has finally found you!"
"Please forgive my presumption, my true body is still under the supervision of the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery, and I can only come to pay my respects to the great Master through this method!"
"Great, supreme Master, may I follow in your footsteps!!!"
Klein was silent; he had already associated it with the Sealed Artifact 2-111, known as the Magic Mirror, in the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery.
When I touched the mirror surface at that time, there were indeed some reactions that were not quite the same... But, is this really that Magic Mirror? The difference before and after is too great!
"2-111?" Klein asked hesitantly in return.
"Yes, Master, you can also call me Arrodes. I can answer any question you ask, as long as it doesn't involve True Gods and Concealment secrets, I can answer without restriction."
"May I, my great, supreme Master?"
Is this its rule? Once a question is asked, the other party must answer a question... But the difference in how it treats the Machinery Hivemind members is too great... Does this Magic Mirror have two faces?... If that Deacon Ikanser saw this scene, would he cry himself unconscious in the toilet?
join p atreon.com/KeyofStars and become a Sequence 9: Reader for dozens of advance chapters for over a dozen fics | Every 100 powerstones = 1 extra chapter